Like this:

The recently published Exploring China’s “Maritime Consciousness” offers quantitative insights into public opinion on the South and East China Sea disputes. The survey was conducted in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Changsha. The survey summarizes responses to give a sense of what “urban Chinese” think about a variety of issues. Of the five cities, only Shanghai is actually a coastal city, while only Guangzhou functions within South China seas cultural formations. Beijing is, of course the national capital, while both Chengdu and Changsha are inland provincial capitals.

Like this:

Yesterday at MoMA I saw an exhibition curated by the Network Architecture Lab, Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms For Expanding Mega-Cities. The exhibition struck me as very house of representatives with archi-biennale characteristics; the curators chose a representative city from each continent and then presented these cities through blow-up charts and video. Thus: NYC represented North America; Rio represent South America; Istanbul represented Europe; Lagos represented Africa; Hong Kong represented East Asia, and; Mumbai represented the Indian subcontinent. More interestingly, perhaps, the museum layout, especially in context of the third floor’s permanent architecture exhibitions, had me thinking about the looming, unrecognized figure of China and how we need to re-think not only urbanization, but also the critical frameworks in which we think about mega-cities. Continue reading →

Yesterday I participated in an afternoon workshop and gave an evening lecture on our work at Handshake 302. I learned how “Chinese” my English has become, especially when speaking of Shenzhen society! Continue reading →